Grant Foreman • The Five Civilized Tribes

As great a rascal and as deceitful a fellow as ever was rapedº up in so much hide" was Agent Upshaw's description of a white man named L. I. Alsoobroke, who was accused of inciting the Chickasaw people to turn from their progressive leaders and revert to old customs. In particular it was said that they proposed to abandon their modern style of government and restore that by hereditary chiefs and thus throw the whole power of the tribe into the hands of two or three of the most ignorant of its members, dominated by Pitman Colbert. The purpose of this movement, said Upshaw, was to secure to a few designing members through the agency of nominal rulers, the control of the large revenues derived from the Chickasaw annuities.

A great council called by Colbert was held at the Boiling Springs near Fort Washita on Monday, July 14, 1845. "All the officers of the Post were invited by Pitman & accordingly on Tuesday morning all hands went down; from the rumors in circulation 'twas supposed there would be some great works & that P. wished the officers present to see him triumph. . . . The people were doing nothing but eating beef, a bountiful supply having been furnished by Sampson Folsom to the tune of 32 steers." Mercenary political methods employed there did not differ greatly from those by white people today.

There were bitter differences between Colbert's faction and the commissioners, who were charged with betraying their trust and making improper use of the public funds handled by them. Isaac Alberson and Benjamin Love denied it and much oratory and vituperation were expended in airing the views and relieving the feelings of the members of the council. Love gave Colbert "particular thunder & frequently after he had spoken some minutes in Indian, spoke the same in English p110 so that the officers who had been invited by Pitman could understand what was going on."⁠1 King Ish to ho to pa made a speech in which he said he was their king, that he was born so and would remain king until his death, though he was willing to abdicate if they wished him to. But the Colbert following would not permit him to do so and he was confirmed as king to convene and preside over all councils of the Chickasaw people. Edmund Pickens was appointed "second controlling chief" to act as treasurer and to handle all tribal funds. Sampson Folsom, William P. Stuart, Dougherty Colbert,⁠2 and James Davis were appointed as assistants to Second Chief Pickens, to hold office during good behavior; in the event of vacancies the king was to make temporary appointments.

The Chickasaw Nation was divided into four companies — Tishomingo's Company, McGilvery's Company, Alberson's Company, and Thomas Seeley's Company; this arrangement was to be continued for the purpose of dividing their annuities. Pitman Colbert wrote Superintendent Armstrong of the proceedings at the council and said: "we have placed our friend Edmund Pickens in the same situation as my old uncle Levi Colbert was in the old Chickasaw Nation." He said that his uncle had been impoverished by the large number of people who came to see him and were fed at his table. And as Pickens would have similar calls upon him it was hoped that a salary would be provided that he might be able to carry this burden. Although Colbert had some education he had at the council asked the editor of a Clarksville, Texas, paper to assist him in drawing up the resolutions and outline of the new government, which are therefore expressed in lucid English.⁠3

The success of the Colbert faction, said Upshaw, was due largely to the jealousy of the people, of their district officers and their prejudices p111 in favor of the old Indian customs. The king selected to rule over them, he said, was an uneducated Indian of inferior capacity, and Pickens was no better. However, Armstrong refused to deliver the money to the officers they selected, but instead paid it to the individuals as formerly. This proved satisfactory to most of the tribe, though much ill feeling and excitement resulted and two of the rival leaders attacked each other during the payment. "It was with the utmost difficulty" said Armstrong, "that I succeeded in separating them, and preventing a general row, which, if it had occurred, must have led to fatal results." Pitman Colbert, the leader of the reactionary faction attempted to keep the Chickasaw Indians in the Choctaw Nation under his control, while Alberson pursued the more enlightened course of endeavoring to have them go to their own domain, establish themselves under their new system of laws and begin their schools.

But conditions were slowly improving. The Chickasaw were industrious and in favorable seasons they raised good crops of cotton, wheat, oats, rye, and corn. In 1843 they had a surplus of 40,000 bushels of corn. But they were handicapped by want of a market denied them by lack of transportation. Red River which sometimes served was wholly inadequate at the season it was most needed. However, they, as well as the Choctaw, found relief in the great movement of white emigrants to Texas in 1846 and subsequent years. Said Armstrong: "For nearly 200 miles on the main traveled road from Missouri and Northwestern Arkansas to the Northern and Northwestern sections of Texas, emigrants and travellers depend entirely for subsistance and forage upon Indians of this tribe, generally of the full blood. Their cabins, usually constructed by themselves, are generally sheltered by Shade trees, and in Situations chosen with a degree of taste, and a regard for comfort not always found among frontier settlers. At several of their homes I Saw looms and Spinning wheels of their own manufacture, some of them made by self taught mechanics. . . . It has been remarked of them that they spend less of their money at the pay ground than is usual among Indians, reserving it for their future wants and requirements."⁠4

The Texas immigrants established a well-marked trail from the north, called the Texas Road, which traversed both the Choctaw and Chickasaw p112 countries.⁠5 Travel on this road during the Texas migration was attended by perils that the Chickasaw Indians were unable to prevent. Said their agent, Upshaw: "Maj. George W. Anderson is now commanding at Ft. Washita with two companies of Infantry, in all 47 men; if we had one or two companies of Dragoons here I think I would apply for them to go on Boggy and Washita and burn up the Cherokee settlements on those Rivers; they are in the habit of lurking along the road from Ft. Smith to Coffees on Red River, and stealing horses from emigrants on their way to Texas. About 8 days since they stole from some emigrants 3 fine horses. I got two of them yesterday morning; the other had been taken to the Canadian.⁠6 I gave two or three Chickasaws the description of the horses and sent them to the Cherokee settlement. . . . They found them with the Cherokees and that night they got the horses and brought them to the depot on Boggy by day light the next morning. They are a pair of splendid match horses worth at least $300. Should you see Genl. Arbuckle I think you had better advise him to send one or two companies of Dragoons here as soon as convenient."⁠7

With the Gold Rush in 1849 another great thoroughfare was added, which crossed the Choctaw and Chickasaw country from east to west along the south side of Canadian River.⁠8 Some of the more enterprising p113 citizens of both tribes established themselves on these public roads where for the next ten years they catered to the needs of the emigrants on their way to new homes; these provided a market for some of the surplus crops and live stock of the Indians and thus contributed measurably to their prosperity.

"improving every year in their habits of industry. I know of but few in the nation who do not make more corn than will subsist them; they raise a good many fowls, and those that are situated within from 10 to 20 miles of Fort Washita furnish it with butter, potatoes, chickens, eggs etc. The merchants generally get contracts to furnish the fort with corn, but they are furnished by the Chickasaws. This year the contract is for only seven thousand bushels; the Indians could furnish forty thousand at the contract price, which is 43 cents, but their corn will be of little use to them, as they have no way of shipping to any foreign country. Had they navigation, their country would be much more valuable, but they can in this country live very independently."⁠9

However, they were still without schools. A young man named Akin, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, had taught a school for a few months, but he gave it up for some reason. For nearly three years, said Mr. Upshaw, the Chickasaw had been trying to make arrangements to establish a manual labor school. "The Chickasaws have great anxiety to have their children educated, and what is most astonishing, the full-bloods show as great a desire as the half-breeds; but they are all very anxious on this all-important subject, and I am in hopes, in a few years, to see at least three large institutions of learning in the Chickasaw district." No preachers either had located in the Chickasaw country.⁠10

Many Chickasaw were deterred by fear of the hostile Indians from moving to their own district where those who did go were still harassed by Cherokee, Shawnee, and Kickapoo Indians living on Canadian River, who stole their horses and killed their cattle and hogs. Rev. p114 E. B. Duncan, a Methodist minister, and his wife conducted a small school for about two years. Mr. Duncan also preached to them and Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury came twice a month from Fort Towson to preach. A contract had just been made with the Missionary Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the erection of a manual labor school. A few more Chickasaw removed from the Choctaw country in 1847, and a body of forty emigrants came from the old nation east of the Mississippi. This year they raised fine crops of cotton, corn, and potatoes. Their horses, cattle, and sheep were improving, but they were not so fortunate with their hogs. The unsettled condition of affairs and lack of police force made it possible for desperadoes to take refuge in their country and add to the difficulties of Chickasaw settlers.

The Alberson faction of Chickasaw met at Post Oak Grove in the Chickasaw district January 29, 1848, and addressed a memorial to their chief and captains requesting that two schools be established in their district, one of which should be for girls. And as some of their people were removing from the Choctaw Nation to their own district they requested that appropriation for smith's shops on the Kiamichi River and Brushy Creek be reduced to provide for only six months shops instead of twelve months; to provide for a shop on Jacks Fork and that the one on Brushy Creek be removed to Perry's Court Ground (near McAlester, Oklahoma) and another be established at Fourche Maline, one at Boggy Depot and one on Red River. This was signed by Isaac Alberson as chairman of the committee, Benjamin Love, Winchester Colbert, Edmund Pickens, Jackson Frazier and eleven other members of the committee, Sampson Folsom secretary, and James McLaughlin chief of the district.⁠11

Construction of the first Chickasaw school on their domain, the Chickasaw Academy, by the missionary society of the Methodist Church, was commenced in January, 1848. On the first of the month, Superintendent Wesley Browning says, they had opened a road to the site of the proposed school. "We immediately pitched our tent, which with one wagon afforded us shelter, while two men went to making boards and the balance of our force engaged in cutting logs and putting up a cabin. The weather continued unusually dry and pleasant, and we plied our axes with such success that by the 10th of February we were p115 enabled to move over the whole of our family from near the council ground. About the middle of Feby. I was offered the hire of 5 or 6 laboring hands — negroes — and finding I could do no better for the present season, I determined to hire them tho' at high rates — ranging from about 13 to 18 dollars per month. " By March 31 they had completed "one log cabin 14 by 20 feet with a clapboard shed at each end, which with our tent affords shelter to our whole family of 18 persons in all; a hewed smokehouse 18 by 20 feet well covered and ready to point; and a corn house, 10 by 20 feet, shedded round for horse and wagon shelters and nearly covered." They had logs cut for a large carpenter shop which they planned to use as a residence while they were building the large boarding house for the mission family. Thirteen thousand rails were being cut for fencing their mission and farm.⁠12

Work on the mission was delayed for some time while Mr. Browning went east to secure "some good steady and pious laboring hands, some more materials and supplies, and to consult with the board of the Missionary Society about the expediency of building a saw mill." Between fifty and sixty acres of woodland were cleared, enclosed with a fence eight rails high and eighteen acres planted to corn. A well and poultry house had been constructed, and logs cut and hewed for the construction of the large carpenter shop. Mr. Browning had brought back from the east the necessary irons and in the autumn a wheelwright was engaged to erect a water mill on a creek about three miles from the mission, to saw the lumber for the buildings and grind the wheat it was expected would be grown on the farm.⁠13

The Chickasaw people wished the Rev. Thomas C. Stuart to have supervision of their girls' school, and the boys' school to be managed by the Episcopal Church. Rev. Mr. Stuart had recently been engaged in removing a party of Choctaw Indians from Mississippi. There were twelve Chickasaw boys attending school at the Choctaw Academy in Kentucky and in June a delegation of Chickasaw Indians in Washington requested that these boys be sent to other schools. They said they were determined not to send any more boys to Kentucky and they were p116 hopeful that schools might soon be in operation in their own country where all their youth could be educated.⁠14

The factions were now united and Pitman Colbert, Isaac Alberson, Edmund Pickens, James McLaughlin and others formed the delegation to Washington where they were engaged in securing an adjustment of their claims against the Government.⁠15 They had employed Col. Peter P. Pitchlynn to go to the Choctaw Academy and take the Chickasaw boys from there to other schools to be selected for them, and they asked that funds be given him to defray the necessary expenses. Pitchlynn conducted eleven of these boys to Plainfield Academy, Norwich, Connecticut, where they arrived August 22, 1848; they made good progress in their studies. In March, 1848, seven more Chickasaw boys, conducted by Robert Love, were sent east to school, including A. V. Brown, Holmes Colbert, Frederick McCala and Benjamin McLaughlin. The commissioner of Indian affairs was requested to select the schools for them and he designated Delaware College, in Newark, Delaware, for young Colbert, who proved an apt student. "His appearance," wrote the principal, "is very prepossessing. I find on examination, that he has not studied any Greek, and very little Mathematics, altho he has made more proficiency in Latin."⁠16

The spring of 1849 found the Chickasaw Academy still incomplete; the work had been confined to the sawmill and now after a year of difficulties, discouragement and delays, it was hoped to have the mill in operation in May. At a meeting of the chief and captains of the Chickasaw Nation on July 16, 1849 an additional appropriation of $1,000 was made to complete the school, and $300 to send Zach Colbert and Gilbert Carter to school for three years; and funds with which the sixteen boys at Norwich could purchase clothing to wear on Sundays and other occasions when they appeared in public.

The people of the Chickasaw Nation were shocked by the assassination p117 on July 3, 1849 of Benjamin Love, the interpreter, five miles from his residence while returning from a Biloxi village where he had gone to recover a stolen horse. He was killed by a Shawnee Indian who was captured and confined at Fort Washita. He admitted his guilt, but implicated also two Chickasaw Indians, whom he charged with hiring him to commit the murder, though the Chickasaw authorities ascertained that there was no ground for his charges. Love "left a vacancy to the nation that cannot be filled," said Upshaw; "he was the most talented man in the Nation; he understood and knew how business ought to be done." Upshaw then appointed as interpreter Col. James McLaughlin; he was late chief and was one of the delegates to Washington the preceding summer.⁠17

The year 1849 found the Chickasaw "situated much as they were last year; very few changes of residence having taken place among them. Some few have moved upon the Washita River, west of Fort Washita, and some from near Fort Towson have moved upon Blue River and some few have moved upon Red River some distance above the mouth of the False Washita. But it is to be regretted that so large a number of the Chickasaws are yet scattered through the different Choctaw districts. There never will be that unity of feeling among them which is desirable, until they get together. I have but little doubt but what some few influential ones among them is the cause of a great many more not moving into their own district."⁠18

The eccentricities of the weather of that year subjected the Chickasaw to considerable reverses. Early in the year there was such an excessive rainfall that the crops were planted with great difficulty; and after they had come up a sleet and snowstorm destroyed their corn, oats, wheat and all their fruits. The weather continued so cold that the people required winter clothes and fires in their homes through the month of August.⁠19 The extraordinary high waters washed away the fine grist- and sawmill of Col. William R. Guy on Boggy River, and the fine grist- and sawmill of G. L. Love the night after he had received it from the builders; the sawmill just completed for the Chickasaw Academy which was to cut lumber for that institution was seriously damaged. The commissioner of Indian affairs had made a contract with p118 the Presbyterian Board for the erection of an academy for girls, and another authorized by the tribe several years before, but nothing had yet been done on it. Nor had any progress been made on the male academy planned by the Episcopal church. So that there were as yet no schools in the Chickasaw Nation.

By 1850 the carpenters at the Chickasaw Academy had hewed out the long timbers for their first large building which was 125 feet long, 34 wide, two stories high with double porches on each side. The lower story contained two living rooms, a large dining room, kitchen, pantry and storeroom, with a cellar thirty-two by eighteen feet. The upper story contained bed rooms. By June, 1850, the walls were up ready for the roof. After a long painful effort the little sawmill had cut the necessary lumber and it was hoped to open the school the first of the next year, if some way could be found to construct the chimneys, said Browning, who, in spite of his obvious inefficiency, was still in charge of the work. He had secured a farmer from Arkansas to look after the crops, but "by the last of April his wife became so dissatisfied and homesick that he left and went back again." They succeeded in planting "35 or 40 acres in corn, but the birds and squirrels were so annoying that a considerable portion of it had to be planted the third time." They were delayed also by the failure to receive from the Government the $6,000 appropriated by the Chickasaw Nation.⁠20

Three months later Browning reported that the sickly season and slow operation of the little sawmill had permitted the large building to progress only to the extent that it was two‑thirds weatherboarded; the rafters and lathing for the roof had not been sawed. The carpenters and laborers had been ill and Browning still did not know how he was going to get the chimneys built. However, he had cut twenty-five tons of hay and had an undetermined amount of corn in the field to feed his six yoke of oxen with which he had timber hauled for the construction of the school. At the meeting of the Chickasaw council near the end of 1849 it was discovered that the tribe was nearly $20,000 in debt. In order to reduce their expenses to the extent of $3,000 a year they decreased the number of their captains from twenty-five to twelve. It was said to be an honest and economical government.⁠21

p119 After the induction into office of President Taylor, Chickasaw Agent A. M. M. Upshaw, who had served continuously since 1838, was removed and he was succeeded by Gabriel W. Long, who was married to a Chickasaw woman. There was much complaint concerning the payment of their annuity in January, 1850, when the Indians suffered from cold. At the payment at Perryville in December, 1850, there was much drinking, and Christmas night in the little village was characterized by that evil and disorder which included one murder as the result of a fight between two drunken men. Kenton Harper was appointed Chickasaw agent to take effect July 1, 1851, but because of illness did not assume the duties of his post for several weeks. Soon after, he was succeeded as agent by A. J. Smith.

The condition of the Chickasaw people showed little improvement. Their progress was much retarded by the unrestrained introduction and drinking of whisky. Many grocery stores were maintained along the border to cater to this appetite and two steamboats on Red River retailed whisky freely. The current rate was a quart of whisky for a bushel of corn. A company of Seminole Indians headed by one Bill Nannubbeeº were engaged in carrying whisky from Preston on the south side of the Red River, through the Chickasaw Nation to Tukpafka Town in the Creek Nation, where it was retailed by a man who stored it in a cellar under his house. The Chickasaw light-horse undertook to prevent this traffic through their country; one of these officers named Chin chi kee encountered this band and though he was armed only with a knife he killed three of the whisky rulers before he was in turn killed by Nantubbee,º who shot him in the head.⁠22

The Chickasaw continued to be annoyed and harassed by the wild Indians who prevented their peaceful occupation of the country owned by them. The Kichai tried to settle on the Washita River against their opposition. The Wichita, who lived on the western part of the Chickasaw domain, stole a number of horses from the Caddo Indians. When the demand of the latter for the return of the stolen horses was refused, the Caddo with Jim Ned, a Delaware, and a few Biloxi Indians made a descent upon the Wichita village and drove off some of the horses of the Wichita. The latter fired on them and precipitated a general fight in which two Caddo and a number of Wichita p120 Indians were killed. "The Wichita who escaped the massacre, came into the Creek country, and implored them to save their tribe from extermination"; they said that thirty of their men, women, and children had been killed in the attack. "The Caddoes and their leader told the Wichitaws that Col. Upshaw the Chickasaw Sub-agent had given them liberty to kill the Wichitaws as they were a very bad people. Col. Logan, the creek agent at the request of Echo Harjo, Creek Chief, immediately upon this information addressed a letter to Col. Upshaw upon the subject."⁠23 Naturally, where such disorders prevailed it was impossible for the unwarlike Chickasaw people to occupy their land and build homes.

Emigration to California through the Chickasaw country which was now in full tide, brought a measure of prosperity to the Indians. The Comanche Indians in the spring of 1850 had broken up their winter camp west of Fort Washita, leaving the road to California free from interruption except from a small band of Waco Indians. But the Chickasaw farmers were suffering from the devastation of immense flocks of rice birds that destroyed their wheat fields. A sixty-acre field of wheat, they said, "would not last their vorariousº maws over three days."⁠24 A letter from "Skitty Hay's Town on Blue (Chickasaw Nation)" July 20, 1850 said: "We have not had a rain for a long time past; the drought is ruining us. . . . Capt Ed Pickens was re‑elected chief of the Chickasaws last week, after a closely contested election."⁠25

The Author's Notes:

2 Colbert to Armstrong, August 1, 1845, OIA, "I. T. Misc. Agent;" Dougherty Colbert was educated in the East having lived two years in the home of Indian Commissioner Thomas C. McKenney at Washington (OIA, Letter Book IV, P. 3, 1827). William Armstrong, acting superintendent, corroborated the statement of Agent Upshaw regarding the determination by a majority of the tribe to "restore the old and long since abandoned system of governing by hereditary chiefs. . . . to benefit a few designing persons" (Report of William Armstrong, September 30, 1845, Arkansas Intelligencer, February 7, 1846).

3 Colbert to Armstrong, August 1, 1845, OIA, "I. T. Misc. Agent." He had served as a captain of a company of Chickasaw warriors in the war against the Creeks in 1814.

4 Armstrong to Crawford, September 30, 1845, OIA, "Western Supt'y," file A 1911.

5 This road proceeded southwest past Fort Gibson and Honey Springs, crossing the Canadian River at North Fork Town, near where is now Eufaula, Oklahoma. Other stations built on the Texas Road were Perryville and Boggy Depot. At the latter place after the road was joined by the one from Fort Smith, it divided and one branch went directly south to Warren's on Red River, and the other reached the river at Preston by way of Fort Washita. Lieut. Indicates a West Point graduate, Class of 1842: a link to his biographical entry in Cullum's Register.

Indicates a West Point graduate, Class of 1842: a link to his biographical entry in Cullum's Register.

J. W. Abert an army officer, traveled the Texas Road from Fort Gibson in October, 1846, by way of Maysville, Bentonville, Springfield, and Waynesville. He said in an official report: "The way from Fort Gibson was literally lined with wagons of emigrants to Texas, and from this time until we arrived at Saint Louis we continued daily to see hundreds of them" (U. S. Senate Document, Twenty-ninth Congress, first session, No. 438, p74).

6 The Starr gang of horse thieves whose rendezvous was at Younger's Bend on the Canadian River in the lower part of the Cherokee Nation, ran stolen horses to Texas and there stole horses they ran to the Cherokee country. One of the Starrs was killed near Fort Washita.

8 This route for a number of years had been employed by traders going to Santa Fé and Mexico; May 1, 1830, a caravan under Pickett and Gregg left Van Buren with an assortment of merchandise, principally dry goods; they traveled on the north side of Canadian River and reached Santa Fé on June 25, and the twenty-second departed for Chihuahua (Little Rock Gazette, May 15, in Army and Navy Chronicle, June 13, 1839, p383; Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, Thwaites, Early Western Travels, Vol. XX, 104). Subsequent expeditions traveled sometimes on the north side of the Canadian and sometimes on the south side.

12 Browning to commissioner of Indian affairs, March 31, 1848, OIA, School File R 285, 324‑363, Choctaw Agency.

14 In May, 1832, the Chickasaw complained that of twenty-one boys sent away to school five had died and several were in the last stages of consumption.

15 Pitman Colbert, Isaac Alberson, and others to Medill, June 9, 1848, "National Records, 1848, Chickasaw Nation," Superintendent for the Five Civilized Tribes, Muskogee, Oklahoma.

16 Wilson to Medill, May 8, 1848, OIA, "School File" W 333. At the same time four Choctaw youths, Pitchlynn, Hall, Wright, and Garland were members of the Sophomore class at Delaware College (Report of commissioner of Indian affairs, Senate Executive Document No. 1175, Thirty-first Congress, first session.)

17 Upshaw to commissioner of Indian affairs, July 5, 1849, OIA, Chickasaw file U 67.

21 Letter from Fort Washita, January 14, 1850 in Fort Smith Herald, January 26, 1850, p2, col. 6.

[ Chickasaw ]

p109 Chapter seven
Difficulties with Wild Indians

The Author's Notes:

[ Chickasaw ]

p109 Chapter seven Difficulties with Wild Indians

The Author's Notes:

p109 Chapter seven
Difficulties with Wild Indians